It’s a question of whether to reward a player that can see that the opponent is using rock, take a step back, start building paper, and send them out even if they take time doing it; versus a player that just super-optimizes building an army of rock to send against armies of paper, and give them the best chance of winning by perfectly kiting every attack on the field.
There’s certainly an argument that some groups would like the tournament of APM, but I think a lot of people didn’t bother with high level StarCraft because they saw Koreans clicking 15 times a second and figured they can’t keep up. It’s like how fighting games work to demonstrate they’re not rewarding button mashing.
My issue is less around changing the story, more around incompleteness.
They’re making the turnout of certain events hazy and mysterious to allow for multiple future turnouts, and let them keep merchandising certain characters. And, they’re letting the conclusion keep going for multiple games.
It’s more of a monetary strategy than a storytelling one. Notably, FFXIV sells each of its expansions, but each one has an ending that feels like a victory and a satisfying conclusion to a story even when it sets new things up.
There’s been one debacle based around PSN, as a service, only being available in certain countries, and Helldivers initially launching in others to simplify their launch.
As of yet, I could believe there are Sony execs that didn’t even realize such a gap existed for their PC releases, and are still deciding what they can legally do. (Premiering their service in new territories isn’t simple, and a lot of their PC investment, plus their multiplayer workings, might be based around the account expectations)
No matter how poorly thought Sony’s international release plan is for PC, that’s far easier to assume brief incompetence than malice around. Firing people who made a GOTY is a whole different level of evil.
No, YOU’RE the one claiming speculation. The null statement is “Without a PR statement, we don’t know who delisted the game”. The speculation was “We believe Sony delisted it.” It just means he’s not satisfied by any evidence in place. You don’t demand sources to make someone disprove a speculative.
Do NOT trust journalists using hazy sources like job postings, replies from support, or patent claims as proof of anything. There’s plenty of places looking to generate headlines and clicks.
Support techs do not have access to insider industry information. They deal with dozens of region-blocked game support issues a day, and in 95% of cases that block was placed by the publisher. The tech is likely just using that term out of assumption and familiarity.
I’m not saying it’s impossible that Sony are the culprit, but a random support reply to an individual is not how we’d find out. It’s happened before that a Valve official puts out a correction to something support says.
They should have been part of the original restriction and it was noticed when the restriction was put in place for Tsushima. This was noticed and executed independently by Valve.
I’m wondering if better AI could save this genre. I always hated the fragility of any soldiers I wasn’t actively controlling, having idle workers, workers trying to chop wood in the middle of enemies, etc.
If the computer can take your high level commands but also put out logical low level ones, and maybe also punish high APM, it might restore some of the moderate-paced feel of the game.
I sort of saw it that way, but the last bit about “subjective negative reviews” seems unusual even for contracts.
There’s enough lazy rage bait “Turns out X is DOGSHIT?!?” videos out there that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to put some terms in expecting some professional effort. But disallowing even polite criticisms definitely seems too far.
Even if I side with the community on the turnout, I feel like a community manager’s job is to represent the company’s interests to some degree. Kind of like a defense lawyer.
They shouldn’t go as far as lying to people or making bad promises, which can make it a tough job, but they definitely shouldn’t be siding with the players against the company, or the internal employees are catching flak from both sides.
It’s like an administrator/tenant relationship. Generally, the publisher controls the region locks, but if the publisher starts doing something potentially illegal or brand-damaging, like selling a bricked game, the store owner can also manipulate the locks.
If they couldn’t, a dev’s efforts to willingly commit brand suicide by releasing a game that bricks people’s computers (not beyond the pale given how stupid publishers are now) would also take Steam down with them.